The photo above appeared in the September 6, 1931 San Antonio Light (San Antonio, TX) and shows Samuel Montgomery Kintner playing William Tell with the robot. The photo below is from the blog Dull Tool Dim Bulb, though I'm not sure who is pictured with Rastus.

Mr. S. M. Kintner, of the Westinghouse Research Laboratories, creates a mechanical Negro known as "Rastus Robot." Mr. Kintner is here enacting a modern scientific version of the famous episode of William Tell, who shot the apple from his son's head. In this demonstration a flash of light is sent out from a tiny bulb concealed in the arrow, the light is picked up by an "electric eye" on "Rastus," which ignites a charge of powder that blows the apple from the robot's head. The arrow does not leave the bow.

Reader Comments (11)

Wow. I feel icky now. And think of the mental context for a contemporary reader of this article -- we're talking 66 years after the end of the Civil War, the equivalent of 1944 for us. The article might as well say "Engineers at Westinghouse are just steps away from creating mechanical slaves! Imagine the day when you can own a darkie without shame - or maintenance!"

Well it looks like a dream you know an "humanoid" doing our things. I'm a little discord with you where you write "fight our wars" I think that if we think about our future we should to think in a world without war, anyway good post!pharmacy reviews